Condoleeza Rice yet to find her dream man

Washington: "I just never found anybody that I was going to spend my life with," said former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who was once considered one of the most eligible women in Washington.

In an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN International on Thursday, Rice said: "I`ve always said that I expected to grow up and get married like any nice Southern girl, but the fact is you don`t get married in the abstract. You find someone that you`d like to be married to."

On being asked how close she had come to tying the knot, she affirmed: "I`ve come close."

She stressed: "But -- but the fact is like, you know, I just never found anybody that I was going to spend my life with. But I think it`s a wonderful thing, marriage, and you know, who knows? Maybe some day."

Rice, who was considered one of the most powerful women in the world at one point of time, said she still held out hope. "Sure. Why not?"

She admitted that she was a romantic. "Well, I love romantic music and romantic movies and --".

When the interviewer said that he couldn`t imagine her ever being a sort of subservient wife, she said: "No. No. I -- not tough, but I`m -- I believe in marriage of equals. My parents were, and that`s how I would see it."

To another query on whether she was "high maintenance", Rice who was the secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 said: "No, of course not."

She went on to say that she just had not "found the dream man, but, you know, we all keep trying".